Research Guides: Basic Literature Research Guide: Doing Literary Research

Primary Sources

Other ZSR Primary Source Databases
Full listing of all the ZSR primary source databases
English Literature Primary Souces

Early English Books Online - EEBO This link opens in a new window
Full text of books, pamphlets and broadsides published in England or in English between 1475 and 1700. Includes many of the items indexed in the English Short Title Catalogue. Corresponds to the Pollard and Redgrave, and Wing Short-Title Catalogues, as well as Thomason Tracts. Coverage: 1473-1700
Early English Prose Fiction This link opens in a new window
Over 200 works of fictional prose by writers from the British Isles from the period 1500-1700. Coverage: 1500-1700
Early American Imprints, Series I & II (combined) This link opens in a new window
Includes the full text of all known existing books, pamphlets, and broadsides published in the 13 colonies and the United States between 1639-1819. Combined search of both the Evans collection and the Shaw & Shoemaker collection. Coverage: 1639-1819
Early American Fiction This link opens in a new window
A collection of American novels and short stories written before 1875. Includes both well-known and obscure figures. Coverage: 1789-1875
Eighteenth-Century Fiction This link opens in a new window
Contains 96 works in English prose by 18th Century British writers. Coverage: 1700-1780
Eighteenth Century Collections Online - ECCO This link opens in a new window
Contains books, pamphlets and broadsides published in England or in English between 1701 and 1800. Includes many of the items indexed in the English Short Title Catalogue. Coverage: 1701-1800
Eighteenth Century Drama This link opens in a new window
Archive of almost every play submitted for licence in England between 1737 and 1824. Also includes The London Stage 1660-1800 which is a searchable database of every performance in London during those years and the Biographical Dictionary of Actors etc. 1660-1800.
Nineteenth-Century Fiction This link opens in a new window
Includes 250 novels from the period 1786 to 1903, including works by all the major Victorian novelists such as Dickens, Thackeray, the Brontes, Eliot and Hardy, as well as the landmarks of Gothic and other fiction from the Romantic period. Coverage: 1786-1903
Nineteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
Primary source collections of the “long” nineteenth century. Collections are sourced through partnerships with major world libraries and specialist libraries. Content includes monographs, newspapers, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, and more. Coverage: 1769-1906
Literary Manuscripts: Berg This link opens in a new window
Manuscript collections of Victorian authors from the Berg collection at the NY Public Library. Each author collection is included in its entirety. Authors represented include: Matthew Arnold, Emily Bronte, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Wilkie Collins, Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, George Gissing, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Ruskin, Alfred Tennyson, William Makepeace Thackeray.
Literary Manuscripts: Leeds This link opens in a new window
This resource contains manuscripts of 17th and 18th century verse held in the Brotherton Collection at the University of Leeds. Alongside original compositions are copied verses, translations, songs and riddles.
Perdita Manuscripts This link opens in a new window
Manuscripts written or compiled by women in the British Isles during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Produced in association with the Perdita Project based at the University of Warwick and Nottingham Trent University, the project seeks to rediscover early modern women authors who were “lost” because their writing exists only in manuscript form. Coverage: 1500-1700
Editions and Adaptations of Shakespeare This link opens in a new window
Contains 11 major editions from the First Folio of 1623 to the Cambridge edition of 1863-6, 28 separate contemporary printings of individual plays and poems, selected apocrypha, and related works. Also contains more than one hundred adaptations, sequels and burlesques from the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Coverage: 1591-1911
New Oxford Shakespeare Online This link opens in a new window
Full Oxford editions of all of Shakespeare's works, both in modern spelling and original spelling. Also includes the Oxford Authorship Companion and introductory materials for each play.

Writing and Language Help

ZSR subscribes to the following items that can help you as you write papers for English classes.

MLA Handbook Plus This link opens in a new window
The go-to resource for writers of research papers and anyone citing sources. MLA Handbook Plus includes the full text of the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook as well as the first editions of both the MLA Guide to Digital Literacy and the MLA Guide to Undergraduate Research in Literature.
Oxford English Dictionary This link opens in a new window
The definitive dictionary of the English Language. Provides timelines of when words entered the language, sources for words, and audio pronunciation guides. Coverage: 1989 Edition, with updates

Background Resources for Literature Research

Gale Literature This link opens in a new window
Search across literary biography, literary criticism, genre studies, reviews, and primary sources across thousands of Gale publications. Good starting point for doing any kind of research in English literature. Coverage: varies
Literary Reference Center Plus This link opens in a new window
Contains author biographies, literary criticism, journal articles and book reviews. Coverage: Details not available

Searching Primo for books and more

Use Primo - the library's search interface - to locate books and other materials all in a single search. Here are a few tips to get you started:

To find items on a theme or issue in an author's work, enter the name of the author/work and a term that best conveys the issue you are researching, e.g. Macbeth and feminis* (the asterisk is a truncation symbol that allows for word variants, such as feminist or feminism). Keep in mind that not every work of literature will have a lot of research on it - you may need to back up from your initial search to something more broad.
To find works about a literary author or other figure, enter the person's name in quotes, i.e. "Jane Austen" - adding in other terms will help narrow down your results - i.e. "Jane Austen" marriage or "Maya Angelou" "civil rights"
To find works around a particular genre, us that genre in your search i.e. poetry abolition or "short story" war

Journal Databases

Literary Criticism Databases

MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
Contains articles, books, chapters of books, conference proceedings, dissertations, and working papers on topics relating to literature, modern languages, folklore, and linguistics. Coverage: 1926-
Humanities International Index This link opens in a new window
Contains scholarly journals and other periodicals and magazines covering the humanities including art, classics, history, literature, philosophy and more. Coverage: 1975-
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
A full-text database of archived issues of academic journals. Since JSTOR is a backfiles project, a typical coverage range is the beginning of a journal until three or five years ago. Supported in part by the Dail Endowment Fund. Coverage: Varies
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Provides access to the full text of scholarly journals and books in the arts and humanities and social sciences. Coverage: Varies
ProQuest One Literature This link opens in a new window
Provides content and tools to support the study of literature from a variety of sources including primary texts, criticism, full-text journals, book reviews, dissertations, eBooks, reference material, audio, and video. Coverage: varies

Other Databases Of Interest

America: History and Life This link opens in a new window
Search for articles about the history and culure of the United States and Canada. Publications include peer-reviewed journals, magazines, dissertations, books, and more. Access is limited to six simultaneous users. Note: For world history topics, use the Historical Abstracts database. Coverage: 1964-
Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Provides indexing and abstracts for journal articles, books, and dissertations covering the history of the world from 1450-- except the U.S. and Canada. For similar coverage of the U.S. and Canada, use America History and Life. Access is limited to six simultaneous users. Coverage: 1954-
International Medieval Bibliography This link opens in a new window
A bibliography of modern scholarship concerning the European Middle Ages (c. 450-1500). Coverage: 1967-
Contemporary Women's Issues (Gale OneFile) This link opens in a new window
provides access to current full text and backfile content covering topics including civil rights, health, education, professional development, and entrepreneurship. Coverage: 1992-
Performing Arts Periodicals Database This link opens in a new window
Performing Arts Periodicals Database indexes around 400 scholarly and trade journals, magazines, books, and newspapers covering theater, dance, film, television, stagecraft, broadcast arts, storytelling, and more. It draws from both current files and selected backfiles to 1864 and 134 publications are included in full text. Coverage: 1864-

Rosalind Tedford

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Subjects: African American Studies, American History, English Literature, Law, Political Science, Social Sciences - General

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Basic Literature Research Guide: Doing Literary Research

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